Russians from the camp for ISIS militant families ask for help from Putin: some of them went missing

About 50 Russian women with children - more than 100 people in total - disappeared in Syria after escaping from the Ain Issa camp, known as a prison for the families of militants of the Islamic State extremist group. Writes about this with the BBC.

Фото: Depositphotos

The camps, which have recently been under the control of the Kurdish militia, remained without proper protection after Turkey launched a military operation on the border with Syria, and the Kurds had to leave their positions.

A few days after the camp was empty, a video appeared on the Internet in which, in an unknown room, several girls in niqabs say their names and say: “From Russia.” This video recording became a kind of appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Relatives have been looking for these girls for a week.

This record was distributed by the RBC publication, to the editor of which it was transferred to a member of the Human Rights Council under the head of the Chechen Republic, Kheda Saratova, writes with the BBC.

Women held in two Syrian camps - Al-Hol in northeastern Syria and Ain Issa near the border with Turkey - are accused of supporting the organization's militants.

One of the women, who called herself Julia Kryukova from St. Petersburg, asks for a record to help her return home and says she does not want to return to the IS.

Kheda Saratova in an interview said that the relatives of these women contacted her. According to her, the women went to Syria to live there with their husbands who fought on the side of the Islamic State, but their husbands were subsequently killed.

Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesman, Alvi Karimov, said the Chechen authorities had already decided to return the wives of the fighters who had fled from these camps to Russia from Syria.

“We are substantively dealing with this issue,” the press secretary confirmed, promising to facilitate the return to Russia of “every woman and every child who, due to their status, can be returned to Russia.”

He also added that among them there may be both violators of the law and innocent persons, but this must be established by the relevant authorities.

“If you don’t leave in five minutes, we’ll set the tents on fire.”

Kasim (hereinafter names have been changed at the request of his relatives) lived with his wife Maida and two children in Dagestan. According to the recollections of Zumrud, Kasim’s mother, “nothing foreshadowed trouble”: Kasim was a “secular guy”, he studied, worked at the same time, and played sports.

Then, in 2014, Zumrud lived in Sochi. One day, her son called her and said that he was going to go to Moscow to earn money, but his mother categorically did not support the idea and forbade her son to leave. The conversation ended there. A few days later, Maida admitted: her husband did leave, though not to Moscow, but “to Egypt,” supposedly to study.

“I was seized with jitters,” says Kasim’s mother in a conversation. “The son got in touch a few days later and said that he would study and then teach at Islamic institutes. What nonsense! I repeated to him: you’re a secular guy, you have football, dancing, what Islamic institutions?!”

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But a few months later, Zumrud’s daughter-in-law also disappeared, taking her children with her. Not soon, but Kasim’s mother finally found out that her children were in the so-called “Islamic State.”

“All this time - since 2014 - they moved from one city to another, from one hot spot to another, but they protected me and said that everything was fine. Just recently, my daughter-in-law said: “When the children and I were already in Turkey, Kasim called and said: you shouldn’t come here, everything here is not what we thought. But it was too late: our documents were taken,” recalls the words of Maida Zumrud.

Maida told her mother-in-law that at some point they managed to find a guide who agreed to take women and children out of the Islamic State via a safe route. But the women were caught anyway. So Maida and her children ended up in the Ain-Issa camp, where they spent a year and a half.

Further, according to Zumrud, who at that time corresponded with Maida, the situation developed as follows: the Syrian Kurds guarding the camp said they were leaving this territory, and all the inhabitants of the camp should go with them, but many still refused. Maida and other Russians called their mothers in Dagestan asking what to do. Those advised to stay in the camp and wait for the arrival of Turkish troops.

“The Kurds just left, opening all the gates of the camp. And after a while, several people returned, and they said: if you don’t leave in five minutes, we will set your tents on fire. And they really set the camp on fire, the girls only managed to pull out the children and several travel bags,” recounts the words of Maida Zumrud.

Journalists have access to a video shot by Maida. It shows black smoke rising into the sky above the tents. A female voice-over says: “Ain Issa is our camp. The Kurds burned our camp. Our tents are smoking. The Kurds kicked us out and burned our tents. We are in a Syrian refugee camp."

"Stick a stick in the sand and find north"

According to Zumrud, the girls gathered into several groups and went into the desert. Maida - and 14 other women and 27 children with her - decided to move towards the Turkish border after leaving the camp. But where she was was unclear. There is only sand around and not a single landmark.

“The children called me scared. We opened a map and started looking for where they were and how to get to Turkey. It turned out we had to go north. But how to find north in the desert? I frantically searched for navigation tips on the Internet,” said Aliya, the mother-in-law of another girl who escaped from the camp with Maida.

“I told them to stick a stick in the sand in the afternoon, see where the shadow falls and go there. It says on the Internet that there should be north in that direction. This is madness. But this was the only way I could help them,” Aliya says in a trembling voice.

According to Zumrud and Aliya, the girls walked through the desert with small hungry children until sunset without food or water. Then we spent the night right on the sand. “The women made a circle with their bodies, they put the children inside the circle and warmed them with their bodies. The next morning we saw a Turkish flag in the distance and went towards it,” says Zumrud.

Then the girls and children were picked up by armed people from pro-Turkish detachments.

“The girls called us and were happy. They said that they took a shower for the first time in two years and saw electricity and hot water. We fed the children and finally ate our fill,” says Aliya. But the women did not rejoice for long.

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“Two days later, some military men came for them. The last time my daughter called and said that they were passing Tell el-Abyad (a city on the border of Syria and Turkey). It was October 17th. Since then, I have lost contact with them,” Zumrud barely manages to say. She cannot continue the story - she cries.

No exact data

On Sunday, 13 October, reported escape hundreds of family members of Islamic State fighters from the Ain Issa camp. The Syrian Kurds, who had previously guarded the camp, had previously warned that they would not be able to properly guard the camps and prisons in the north of the country.

It is still impossible to calculate exactly how many people left the camp. Initially, monitoring groups spoke about 100, Kurdish authorities - about 800 relatives of IS members, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even called reports about the escape of prisoners disinformation.

But the Kurdish administration insisted: the camp is not guarded.

Soon, the Syrian non-governmental organization Enab Baladi was able to communicate with the Frenchwoman, who was also detained in the camp. She confirmed the story told by the Russians: the Kurds themselves released the prisoners from the camp when they left Ain Issa, having heard about the advance of Turkey.

The now empty Ain Issa camp was famous around the world just a couple of weeks ago: it housed the families of Islamic State militants.

In May 2019 of the year in the camp was almost 13 thousand people, they lived in tents an average of five to six people. There were few available sources of information from the outside: the news was learned thanks to word of mouth. Most of the camp residents were interested in two questions: how to find a job and how to return to their native places.

New camp and negotiations

Representatives of the Turkish Interior Ministry said that over the past week they have detained 236 people who fled from camps for former ISIS accomplices. Previously, these camps were controlled by Kurdish forces.

The fate of some families was tracked by Turkish journalists. According to them, all detainees of Turkish origin were transported to detention centers in Turkey. Subsequently, these people will be tried, and their children will be placed in special shelters for now.

According to the Turkish Interior Ministry, foreign citizens, including Russian citizens, were taken to camps in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo. This territory is now under the control of forces loyal to Ankara.

According to the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs, first of all, detainees of non-Turkish origin are sent to detention centers in the cities of Afrin, Jerablus and Al-Bab.

According to sources close to the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs, representatives of the Turkish forces will soon notify representatives of those countries whose citizens have been detained over the past week in northern Syria in order to begin negotiations on their future fate.

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